Young families are being rapidly driven out of the countryside by the cost of
housing and replaced by retired people leaving cities, a study shows.

Some rural areas have seen almost one in four people in their 30s and early 40s move out in the past decade as over 65s come to dominate the population, research based on census findings shows.

A study by the National Housing Federation lays out a dramatic demographic shift with and an increasingly sharp divide between the populations of town and countryside.

The group warned that the exodus of younger people and their children could have a dramatic effect on village life in the future.

The report contrasts population figures with records of house prices, which rose by more than 80 per cent in rural areas over the same period despite the recession, to argue that young families are being priced out of parts of the countryside.

Overall the number of people under 45 grew by six per cent in towns and cities in England between the 2001 and 2011 censuses but fell by two per cent in predominantly rural local authority areas.

But among those aged between 30 and 44 – the age at which people are most likely to have young children – the average decline was nine per cent in just a decade.

In South Hams, Devon, the number of people in their 30s and early 40s dropped by 22 per cent – at the same time as house prices more than doubled.

The rate of change was similar in Knowsley and Sefton in the North West and West Somerset at the other end of the country, the study shows.

At the same time the number of people over 65 in predominantly rural local authority areas rose by 20 per cent – compared with a rate of just eight per cent in towns and cities.

"Young people are being priced out of rural England by rising housing costs and are moving elsewhere to raise their families,” said Gill Payne, director of campaigns an neighbourhoods at the National Housing Federation.

“What will happen to the local shops and pubs, the village school, the small businesses that maintain rural economies, if there’s no one left to keep them open?

“If we don’t start building more homes that ordinary families can afford, our treasured rural England will become the preserve of the old and wealthy.”